JFK ASSASSINATION ARGUMENTS (PART 958)

GARRY PUFFER SAID:

I'm tired of hearing this lie told by James Humes and commonly repeated by nearly everyone that Humes did not find out about the throat wound until Saturday, Absolutely not true. Here is a statement from Dr. Robert Livingston about a call he made to Bethesda from Parkland on the evening of Nov. 22:

"...the Officer on Duty put me through to speak directly with Dr Humes who was waiting to perform the autopsy. After introductions, we began a pleasant conversation. He told me that he had not heard much about the reporting from Dallas and from the Parkland Hospital. I told him that the reason for my making such a...call was to stress that the Parkland Hospital physicians' examination of President Kennedy revealed what they reported to be a small wound in the neck, closely adjacent to and to the right of the trachea.

I explained that I had knowledge from the literature on high-velocity wound ballistics research, in addition to considerable personal combat experience examining and repairing bullet and shrapnel wounds. I was confident that a small wound of that sort had to be a wound of entrance and that if it were a wound of exit, it would almost certainly be widely blown out, with cruciate or otherwise wide, tearing outward ruptures of the underlying tissues and skin.

I stressed to Dr. Humes how important it was that the autopsy pathologists carefully examine the President's neck to characterize that particular wound and to distinguish it from the neighboring tracheotomy wound."

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Garry,

Do you actually believe that Dr. Humes was told before the autopsy (in some detail) about the bullet hole in JFK's throat, but then Humes just totally ignored that information when it came time to perform the autopsy?

In a word --- Nonsense.

GARRY PUFFER SAID:

Of course I believe it, and you know very well why the wound was not examined.

Do you actually believe Dr. Humes did not tell any lies concerning the autopsy? In a word, nonsense, David.

I don't think he liked doing it, but a military doctor does what he's told to do.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Let's see what Dr. Humes told the Warren Commission (emphasis added by DVP).....

Commander HUMES -- "We were able to ascertain with absolute certainty that the bullet had passed by the apical portion of the right lung producing the injury which we mentioned. I did not at that point have the information from Doctor Perry about the wound in the anterior neck, and while that was a possible explanation for the point of exit, we also had to consider the possibility that the missile in some rather inexplicable fashion had been stopped in its path through the President's body and, in fact, then had fallen from the body onto the stretcher."

Mr. SPECTER -- "And what theory did you think possible, at that juncture, to explain the passing of the bullet back out the point of entry; or had you been provided with the fact that external heart massage had been performed on the President?"

Commander HUMES -- "Yes, sir; we had, and we considered the possibility that some of the physical maneuvering performed by the doctors might have in some way caused this event to take place."

Mr. SPECTER -- "Now, have you since discounted that possibility, Doctor Humes?"

Commander HUMES -- "Yes; in essence we have. When examining the wounds in the base of the President's neck anteriorly, the region of the tracheotomy performed at Parkland Hospital, we noted and we noted in our record, some contusion and bruising of the muscles of the neck of the President. We noted that at the time of the postmortem examination."

GARRY PUFFER SAID:

God, David, stop with the WC testimony to "prove" anything. So much of the testimony is false, and you know this. Humes had been telling his lie for so long by the time he faced the WC, it probably seemed like the truth to him.

Sorry, I'll put my money on Dr. Livingston, who had no reason to lie, against Dr. Humes, who had every reason to lie and did just that.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Let's have a look at how reliable good old Dr. Livingston is.....

From Vince Bugliosi's book....

[Quote On:]

"[Dr. Robert B.] Livingston is the person who claims that just hours after the assassination, when there was mass confusion and no one knew anything for sure about the trajectory or origin of fire, he reached Dr. Humes on the phone at Bethesda Naval Hospital just prior to the autopsy and informed Humes that JFK’s front neck wound was probably an entry wound, and that Humes had to terminate the conversation because FBI agents would not let him continue (Statement of Robert B. Livingston, MD, November 18, 1993, in Fetzer, "Assassination Science", p. 162; David W. Mantik, “The JFK Assassination: Cause for Doubt,” in Fetzer, "Murder in Dealey Plaza", p.113).

Mind you, Livingston claims he told Humes this before Humes learned from Dr. Perry that there was a bullet wound to the front of Kennedy’s neck. But Livingston, calling from San Diego, knew better. My, my.

In a 1993 deposition, Livingston changed the time of the alleged call, claiming that he talked to Humes for fifteen minutes to a half hour between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. (EST) on the afternoon of the assassination, when we know Humes wasn’t even at Bethesda (ARRB MD 24, Deposition of Robert B. Livingston, MD, Case No. 73-93, "Crenshaw and Shaw versus Sutherland", November 19, 1993, pp.101, 105, 199).

Dr. Humes told the ARRB in 1996 that he had never heard of Dr. Livingston and after reading parts of his deposition said, “Well, this is ridiculous. I was at home at this time. He never talked to me, period . . . This is fantasy. Pure fantasy . . . Never happened. That’s all I can tell you” (ARRB Transcript of Proceedings, Deposition of Dr. James Joseph Humes, February 13, 1996, pp.47, 48, 49).

In his deposition, Livingston admitted that although the information he had was important, he never contacted the Warren Commission, HSCA, Clark Panel, or any other official investigation, but that when he finally did take action (in April–May of 1992), he only wrote letters and met with known conspiracy theorists—Peter Dale Scott, David Lifton, Gary Aguilar, and Harrison Edward Livingstone.

Livingston ultimately expressed his belief in a conspiracy to assassinate and cover up the JFK assassination, going so far as to claim that whoever was involved in the JFK killing and cover-up was also involved in his getting sprayed with gasoline at a service station once (ARRB MD 24, Deposition of Robert B. Livingston, MD, Case No. 73-93, "Crenshaw and Shaw versus Sutherland", November 19, 1993, pp.41, 48–51, 54–56, 78, 87, 179–181)." -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 286 of Endnotes in "Reclaiming History"

GARRY PUFFER SAID:

Sorry, David, but I don't trust Bugliosi any more than you trust Mark Lane, so don't quote Vince to convince me of anything.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

But everything Dr. Humes did during the autopsy on 11/22/63 at Bethesda, while President Kennedy's body was lying on the autopsy table, indicates that Dr. Humes did not positively know that there was a bullet hole in JFK's throat.

And we don't have to take just Dr. Humes' word for this. We also have the Sibert/O'Neill report to guide us, too. In that report written by FBI agents James Sibert and Francis O'Neill on November 22, 1963 (and dictated on November 26, 1963) [ARRB MD 44], it states the following on Page 4:

"Inasmuch as no complete bullet of any size could be located in the brain area and likewise no bullet could be located in the back or any other area of the body as determined by total body X-Rays and inspection revealing there was no point of exit, the individuals performing the autopsy were at a loss to explain why they could find no bullets."

Therefore, via the above excerpt that comes from the report written by FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill, it's quite clear that the autopsy doctors (including James J. Humes) were not fully aware during the course of the autopsy of the existence of the bullet hole in the lower part of President Kennedy's throat.

In addition, the Sibert/O'Neill report also states on Page 3 that President Kennedy's body had undergone "surgery of the head area". And we know from later interviews with James Sibert (such as this one in 2005) that the "surgery of the head area" remark had come straight from the mouth of Dr. James Humes himself.

Now, I ask this: If Dr. Humes had been part of a covert plot to secretly alter John F. Kennedy's head wounds (and according to Douglas P. Horne, Humes DID alter the President's head wounds), then why on Earth would Humes have uttered aloud that there had been apparent "surgery of the head area"? It makes no sense.